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The first time it happens, Eliot doesn’t even notice.
He’s sitting on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table, ankles crossed just-so, his right arm stretched across the back of the couch, lazily gesticulating as he speaks. Quentin’s crowded up against his left shoulder, his knees hooked over the arm of the couch, his weight on Eliot’s side. Margo stands before them, hips cocked, head thrown back in a ringing laugh, looking like a L’oréal commercial.
Their calculated air of careless glamour, their earnest nerd helplessly enveloped. All as it should be.
Margo has been modeling outfits for them for the last hour. She’s just back from what was supposed to be a quick trip into the city, but ended up being an impulsive shopping spree that kept her out all day and well into the night, and now she’s trying to decide what to keep.
“Jesus, El,” she says through bubbles of laughter, “I know how you feel about vertical ruffles, but that’s just harsh.”
Eliot tilts his head and looks the dress over again, arriving immediately at the same conclusion he did just a moment ago. “It’s literally a pink gradient, Bambi. You look like you’re cosplaying your own twat.”
Margo tosses her hair. “The world should be so lucky for the preview.”
“Well I think you look nice,” says Quentin, “and not vaginal at all.”
Eliot cycles through a few glib remarks in his head — Oh? And how would you know? — Honey, you’re here to look pretty, not to have an opinion — before settling on the safest option. “You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re afraid of her.”
“That is not…” his gaze flicks to Margo. “...the only reason I’m saying that.”
Margo beams. “Smart boy,” she coos at Q. “Anyway, I’m keeping the dress. If anything I like it more now.” She twists her arms behind her back to undo the zipper and shamelessly strips down to her bra and underwear in the middle of the common room before digging around in the various shopping bags for another outfit.
Quentin had refused to look at her bare body when they began this exercise, going all tense and averting his gaze each time she undressed, but at this point he seems to have accepted his fate. He lolls against Eliot’s shoulder and gestures vaguely clothes-ward. “What’s that black thing?” he asks. “Is that leather?”
“Ooh, this one!” Margo plucks the thing from its bag and holds it up. Quentin’s right; it’s a black leather dress, skintight from lower thigh to waist, where it separates into two long tapered strips that are apparently meant to cover the breasts and tie behind the neck. “So it’s a little nineties, I know, but how could I resist? Sometimes a girl’s gotta make a statement.”
“And what statement is that?” Eliot asks skeptically as she whips off her bra to authenticate the experience. Quentin doesn’t even twitch. Poor thing must be desensitized.
“That I can pull off fucking anything,” she answers. “Be a dear and tie this up for me?” She perches on his lap and holds her hair up so he can fasten the dress.
He pulls it tight and pats her shoulder to let her know he’s done. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”
She shimmies her shoulders to test the knot, then springs up from his lap. “I’m the one who does all the tying and you know it,” she says, assuming the rate-my-look pose. “So what’s the verdict?”
Eliot looks her up and down, from the restrictive hem to the lay of the panels against her collarbone to the small gold baubles at the ends of the ties. “Well,” he sighs, “you make it work, I suppose.”
She smiles sweetly and flutters her eyelashes, expectant.
“Alright, fine. I concede defeat. You look phenomenal.”
Q nods against his shoulder. “Yeah,” he agrees with a yawn, “you look super hot.”
“I like him all sleepy like this,” says Margo. “He’s very agreeable.”
“Mmph,” says Quentin.
Two outfits later, Margo pauses halfway through unbuttoning her shirt and tilts her head with a delighted grin. “Aww. Look at ‘im.”
Eliot does. Quentin hasn’t moved from his position — wedged between Eliot and the arm of the couch, folded cozily against him — but now his head is tilted back, his arms crossed loosely over his middle, his mouth hanging slightly open. His eyes are closed. He’s fallen fast asleep on Eliot’s shoulder.
“Oh,” says Eliot, softly. “I thought he went all quiet because he got bored of the fashion show.” Quentin’s nose twitches as a stray lock of hair brushes against it, and Eliot feels, for half of an utterly insane moment, like kissing it.
“One of us should probably haul his ass up to bed,” says Margo, making absolutely no move to do anything of the sort.
Eliot arches an eyebrow at her. “‘One of us,’ hmm?”
She gives him doe eyes. “I have aaallll these heavy bags to carry. Are you telling me you can’t even be responsible for one little nerd? What is he, like, the size of a pomeranian?” She snakes her arms through the handles of far more shopping bags than any one person should carry and lifts them with the ease of one highly practiced. “Don’t be a baby, baby.” And with that, she and her multitude of purchases make their way upstairs.
Well, it’s not as if he needs her help anyway. Or as if he really minds helping Quentin up to bed. Or as if he would mind just… sitting here for a while. Letting him sleep. It’s sort of sweet, really.
But Eliot has his own bed to get to. “Hey Q,” he murmurs, nudging Quentin’s shoulder gingerly. “Wake up.”
Quentin shifts against him and makes a quiet little noise like nngk.
“I don’t know what that means,” says Eliot, “but you need to get to bed.” He shrugs a little, making Quentin’s head roll to the side, and that does the trick.
“Wh- fuck, what happened?” Q mumbles groggily. “Did I- ?”
“Pass out like Granny watching Wheel of Fortune? Yes.”
“Oh.” He winces. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. You’re really comfortable.”
Eliot marvels at how thoroughly fucking charmed he is by that. Ridiculous, really. “That’s alright, Q. Let’s just get you up to bed for some rest, okay?”
Quentin snorts against his shoulder. “If that’s what they’re calling it these days,” he mumbles. At least, Eliot thinks that’s what he said. A bit difficult to tell with his jacket in the way. Before he can ask him to repeat himself, though, Quentin is standing, wobbling, and Eliot has to reach up and press a hand flat against his back to keep him from toppling back onto the couch.
“Thanks,” Q says sheepishly. “Stood up too fast, I guess.”
Eliot rises to his feet as well, hooking his arm around Quentin’s waist smoothly. “Whatever would you do without me, honestly.”
“Hmm.” Quentin smiles up at him. “Get to bed on time, probably.”
“Oh, Q,” he says as he guides him toward the stairs. “We both know you wouldn’t.”
~
The second time is the result of wine and frustration and, while it isn’t his preferred result, Eliot can’t really bring himself to complain either.
They’re back from the safehouse, library book restored to its rightful home, crisis neatly averted, and Quentin is pouting like nothing else. Eliot didn’t hear all the words exchanged between him and his hedge friend, but he suspects she got a few good punches in. Q is emanating someone-for-the-love-of-fuck-comfort-me vibes for a twelve foot radius. At least, that’s how Eliot is choosing to interpret his hunched, prickly silence.
He’s pretty sure he’s right.
So he sits them on the couch and plies Quentin gently with wine and lets him say what he needs to say and does his best to say what he needs to hear. He’s not particularly practiced at this — Margo rarely responds to words of comfort with anything but petty ire, and like hell is he gonna go around offering his shoulder to whatever inconsequential idiot wants to cry on it — so instead of trying to figure out the Right Things to Say, he just tries to be honest.
It’s exhausting, being this honest. But Quentin seems to draw it out of him.
And then he’s leaning over Quentin to refill his glass and Quentin takes a break from pouting just for a moment to look up at him with dark, open eyes and Eliot is just feeling the beginnings of a slow heady warmth suffusing him-
And the door explodes inward. Naturally.
Eliot’s not particularly familiar with this Kady girl, but he can say one thing about her for certain: she has truly terrible timing. And an even worse ability to read a room, given how she squeezes onto the couch between him and Quentin as if she belongs there. She makes for tolerable company, at least, even if he does wish she would vanish right about now.
Either way, he’s relieved when she heads upstairs after only one drink. He was sort of in the middle of something, thanks very much. Her boots clomp down the hallway and he turns to Quentin, some wry comment on the tip of his tongue, only to forget it entirely when he sees how Q’s lids are fluttering dangerously low, like the flame of a dying candle.
Eliot smiles in spite of himself. “Time for bed?” he asks.
Quentin crinkles his face up cutely. “I’m not tired.”
Baby, you don’t have to be, he doesn’t say, because Quentin is clearly lying, and because now is not the moment, and because of something he does not care to investigate. Instead he says, “Whatever you say, Q.”
“Shut up,” says Quentin. “I’m not tired.” He finishes off his glass and scoots closer to lean into Eliot’s shoulder. Eliot should give him wine more often.
“I didn’t say you were,” Eliot points out.
Quentin considers this. “Well, shut up anyway,” he says. “Pillows don’t talk.” And he nuzzles happily against the fabric of Eliot’s shirt.
Eliot should give him wine always. He’s oddly precious like this. So instead of being mortally offended that he’s been told to shut up, he rests his head on top of Quentin’s and hums a soft melody until the warm breath on his arm goes slow and deep and steady.
And Q is asleep. Out like a light, the little liar. Eliot has no clue how he does that, just dozes off sitting up in whatever spot is available. It’s sort of impressive, really. Maybe that’s his discipline.
He should really wake him up, tell him told you so, send him off to bed.
Or he could let him sleep. Just a little longer.
~
The third time is mutual. It’s also around the time Eliot stops keeping track. The professors are all rushing through their curriculum in preparation for the Trials, and the pop quiz pileup has all the first years exhausted and grumpy.
Eliot can’t tell Q why Sunderland suddenly has it out for him, but he can, apparently, provide a convenient place to nap in between study sessions. Convenient for Quentin, that is. It’s actually pretty fucking inconvenient for Eliot, who had plans today that involved things like, you know, standing. Moving. Having full autonomy with regards to the placement of his limbs.
Only, well. Q is just so peaceful with his legs draped across Eliot’s on the window seat, face mashed indelicately against his chest. Peaceful even as restless as he is, still nervous even in sleep, feet twitching periodically, hand curled tight in Eliot’s shirt, occasionally mumbling something about circumstances. Eliot looks down at him and thinks, If anyone tries to wake this idiot up I’ll curse them into next week. It wouldn’t even be out of any personal fondness for him, really. Just an understanding that something as unbearably fragile as a Quentin Nap fundamentally demands protection from whoever is able to provide it. And it seems he’s been recruited.
If this is Eliot’s lot in life, so be it, he guesses. Anyway, he can’t very well curse himself. So he wraps an arm around Quentin’s shoulders, and he leans back, and he closes his eyes.
He wakes a few minutes later to find Margo standing over them, hands on hips, eyebrows raised. She may have expected him to meet her somewhere. He’s not sure. He’s a little fuzzy at the moment.
“What?” he asks.
Margo just shakes her head slowly in extreme disappointment.
“What?”
She rolls her eyes and struts off toward the patio, probably to sunbathe in a huff. “Just fuck him already, would you?” she tosses over her shoulder. He estimates from her tone that she isn’t actually annoyed, just exasperated.
“Make me,” he calls to her, nonsensically, and goes back to sleep.
(That isn’t the last time Margo finds them napping together, but it is the last time she bothers to comment on it. She’s made her opinion clear and she doesn’t care to repeat herself.
She does, however, cast a spell to stick them together three-legged-race style when she turns around to find they’ve fallen asleep in her bed while she was still talking to them. That leads to some interesting dilemmas which neither of them are brave enough to complain to her about.
Bambi hates to be ignored.)
~
And then there’s the time Eliot doesn’t like to think about. At least, he doesn’t like to think about it for a while after it happens. They were drunk, and magically high, and exhausted from fucking people they really shouldn’t have been fucking, namely each other and Margo, and in the chilly aftermath of that there is no comfort to be had in the warmth of their legs and arms tangled, of broad shoulders pressed to his chest.
And then things — shift, he guesses, because they’re friends and they care about each other and that matters more than the fallout, and because everything else is so fucked up that an ill-advised threesome is hardly anything to be worked up about, and because he’s here in a strange new world with a strange new life and a strange new wife, dear god, and everything looks different from here. Everything looks different since he first felt the weight of the crown on his head, kneeling in what wasn’t, what couldn’t be, but felt an awful lot like supplication. And when he stood he found that things had changed.
And then he thinks about it all the fucking time.
~
Quentin curls against him on the couch, back in the cottage, at Brakebills, on Earth, and he’s still for just a moment too long, his head just a little too heavy on Eliot’s shoulder, and Eliot thinks, Fuck’s sake, really? and he thinks, Does this disaster get any sleep at all without me? and he thinks, Ah. Hmm.
He thinks It’s almost like none of it ever happened. Like Jane turned her key again, one last time, and let them have this. Peace.
But he knows that his body is sleeping a world away, his kingdom waiting for his return. And he knows that once Quentin wakes up they’ll have to go back to reviewing their plans for a bank heist to fund a war and a divine abortion. So. Well. Peace is a strong word for it, maybe.
Quentin stirs.
“You know, most people sleep in beds,” Eliot informs him.
“Most people only live on one planet,” Quentin says into his sleeve. “But I don’t complain to you about your habits.”
“I just thought you should be aware. Have you been sleeping in your actual bed? Like, at night?” Eliot takes Q’s chin and tilts it up to inspect his face. His eyes are puffy and shadowed, he hasn’t shaved lately, his hair is best described as unfortunate. He looks like a wreck. A cute wreck, but still. “You look miserable. Did you forget how to sleep in my absence?”
Quentin pulls back, shoulders drawing up tensely, eyes fixed on the empty air. “I’m fine,” he says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“O… kay,” says Eliot, unsure what this prickliness is about. Probably the clear lack of sleep. “I just meant that you seem tired.” Quentin shrugs, still scowling at nothing. Eliot tucks a lock of (unfortunate) hair behind his ear. “It’s enough to bruise the ego,” he says, “a cute boy falling asleep on me all the time. I might start to think you’re bored of me.”
Q cracks half a smile at that, even as he rolls his eyes. “Right, sure, whatever.”
“I mean it, Q,” Eliot says with as much mock-offense as he can muster. “You wound me. Do you tire of my company? Do I make you feel so fatigued?”
Quentin snorts and shoves his face against Eliot’s shoulder. “Shut up,” he says, grinning. And then, quieter, he answers. “No. You make me feel safe.”
And he falls asleep again with no regard whatsoever for what he’s just done to Eliot.
Who thinks, Ah. Hmm.
~
Running a kingdom, as it turns out, is exhausting.
Eliot can tell, because he’s exhausted. Enough so that he’s fallen asleep right in the middle of forcing Quentin to listen to him rant about fabric swatches. Quentin isn’t his first choice for that, obviously, but he had to give Bambi a break sometime. She’s been almost uncharacteristically kind about it, but he hasn’t missed the murderous twitch developing in her eye lately.
Planning a wedding, as it turns out, is also exhausting.
He wakes to find Quentin blinking blearily above him, cozied up among the pillows against Eliot’s headboard, Eliot’s head resting on his stomach.
“Huh. Good morning,” says Quentin.
“I’m pretty sure it’s afternoon,” replies Eliot.
Q shrugs. “I have portal jet lag, sue me.”
They decide jointly that time is bullshit, actually, and anyway they’ve both earned the right to be lazy for a few more hours. So they do. They curl up under the luxurious satiny bedspread — being king has its benefits — and talk for a while. They don’t discuss anything big or important or life-threatening at all. It’s a nice change.
Eliot’s been petting Q’s hair and hotly disputing his Buffy episode rankings for several minutes when Q cuts him off abruptly. “Hey, El?”
He blinks. He’s really worked himself up over season six, and now he has to recalibrate. “Yeah?”
“How come one of us is always in the middle of some kind of crisis? Like, do we just never get a break? Is there no-” he chokes up for a second and Eliot holds still. Waits. “There’s no. No end. Just this. Is this the closest we ever get to being okay?”
Eliot… can’t say he hasn’t thought much the same. “I don’t know, Q.” He resumes stroking his hair, with a little more purpose this time. “I think maybe that’s just how our lives work. Maybe all we get is what we make.”
Quentin sinks into the pillows. “Well it sucks,” he says. “It seems like we never get a moment of peace.”
Well. Yeah. Eliot sighs. “C’mere,” he says, pulling Quentin against his chest. “I’ll be your moment of peace.”
They stay like that for a while, not speaking, just holding on.
After a minute, Quentin speaks. The words are quiet, even for being muffled by the sheets. He says them as if they’re a soreness, long ignored. “You always are,” he says. “You always have been. You make things… better, El.”
Eliot kisses the top of his head and doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know what he would say if he did. They’re silent for another while.
Quentin’s voice, when it comes again, is a drowsy murmur. “I wish… I wish I could do the same for you.”
Eliot holds him, and holds him, and holds him, and waits until long after he’s fallen asleep to answer.
“You do, Q. You do.”